Letter from Joanna

Dear Paula

I feel I should explain to you what I couldn't
say to you in person. I told you I'd lost the baby, last night on the phone. I'm
sorry I couldn't bring myself to tell you more. It still hurts too much.
You'll see why when you read what I have to tell you below.

I know you'll be sympathetic, but I can't cope
with sympathy at the moment. Not just now. I'm too busy with my own grief. And
as for Tim  I've never seen him devastated before.

I suppose we'll get over it. People
do. But just at the moment I can't imagine how.

I remember sitting in that horrible waiting
room at the hospital. Women around me, with bumps like mine, drinking water and
joking about full bladders for their ultrasound scan. By then I'd had mine. They
were laughing, smiling at one another, grimacing when baby kicked.

And the ones who'd had their scans were coming
out, especially the ones only a few weeks pregnant, showing off their photos of the baby
on the screen.

When I had my first scan I wanted
to write poetry. I know you had told me that after Jamie's scan you
wanted to go and pray straight away, to thank God for the miracle. Even
though you knew all the biology of how the baby got there and the physics
of how you were able to see it, you said it was still the first real miracle
you'd ever experienced.

I didn't think my next scan would be so
different... The baby stopped kicking in the night. At first I was glad, I thought,
it's letting me sleep. But in the early hours of the morning I just knew there was
something wrong. The midwife couldn't hear a heartbeat. She tried to reassure
me, but I knew...

The doctor sent me to the hospital for a
scan. I hadn't told Tim. I didn't want to worry him! And after the scan
they said the baby was dead. And they booked me in to have it induced the next day
 yesterday. I can't tell you how awful that was. But they let us bath her, and
dress her, and we both sat there and cuddled her. She was perfect, small, but a perfect
baby.

The funeral's on Friday, 10 o'clock. We
wanted it quiet but everyone seems to want to come. I was going to ask you to be
godmother, Paula. We called her Petra. She was due on June 29th, the feast of
Saints Peter and Paul, and it seemed appropriate, Petra and Paula. It was supposed to
be a surprise for you.

I'll see you on Friday, I expect.

love

Joanna

Helen Whitehead

Part of this work was submitted as the Dissertation for
the MA in Writing